Transition in the Costa del Sol

Cesar Alejandro Orioli, founder of the Arboretum Marbella, one of the coast’s great success stories of the past two years, has also helped launch a transition initiative in Marbella, Marbella INtransition. Although the group was only formed recently, they are already working hard on several projects and are now part of the team that is bringing the 2nd Annual Transition Gathering to Mijas in April.

Why did you launch a transition group in Marbella?
I really think that every community should have a transition initiative, to respond to the current crises and prepare communally for what lies ahead, such as Peak Oil. It is an act of responsibility, commitment and solidarity. Working with a transition initiative is primarily to be part of the solution, to assume our share of responsibility and, importantly, to stop waiting for answers – if we depend on politicians and other official structures, changes and solutions will either never arrive or arrive too late.

What does the group do?
Good question. The first thing is to have a vision together of the future we want and can achieve, then to make a plan and finally get down to work and do it gradually and communally, where everyone takes part. Marbella INtransition initially chose 3 specific projects: edible gardens, responsible consumption and transition education in schools.
Marbella INtransition members all work on these projects, and we have already organised the responsibility for communication and training. The idea is to be able to grow towards the realisation of our dream and to create a space that more and more people can know about and to join if they want to.
Everything we do is imbued with these guiding principles: that they are local (essential and basic), low in CO2 or consume less than at present, reactivate or boost the local economy, have a social benefit as well, promote local resilience (adaptation to change), and finally that they are sustainable or tend to be so in the medium term.

What is the annual transition gathering?
The first one was held in April last year and the idea is to bring together all the transition initiatives in Spain once a year to share and learn from each other. This year it will be held in Mijas on April 12 to 14 and the theme is “Tools for Transition”. The idea is to get to know one another, to affirm the path taken by our initiatives, and to empower ourselves to keep moving forwards. The meeting is for all initiatives, large and small, and in three days of workshops and conferences, we can:
• Collect ideas, examples and inspiration of the different transition groups, in order to promote it wherever they develop.
• Give social visibility to the Transition Towns movement, a living example of positive action.
And this year we will also focus on:
• Deepening the real transition tools we need to develop the objectives of the movement.
• Continuing to build the National Transition Network.

Who is organising it?
For this 2nd Meeting the organizers are the local transition initiatives in Transition Mijas-Fuengirola, Coin and INtransition Marbella. We hope to host another 40 initiatives from all over the country and bring together approximately 200 people. It will be a great weekend of learning, sharing and celebrating progress and all the projects we have realised.